


Practicum: Circumnavigation

by XaviaAndromedovna



Series: Student-Guided Instruction [1]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Angst and Humor, Coming of Age, Existential Angst, Gen, Internalized Biphobia, Introspection, M/M, Mild Peril, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Troy, Pre-Slash, Sailing, WIP, childish tycoon, plus some fluff thrown in sometimes for good measure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25791514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/XaviaAndromedovna/pseuds/XaviaAndromedovna
Summary: Troy, accompanied by a certain childhood hero, sails around the world. There's a lot to see, a lot to do, a lot to learn, and alotto think about.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Rachel (Community), Troy Barnes & LeVar Burton, Troy Barnes & Study Group, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/OCs
Series: Student-Guided Instruction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870984
Comments: 10
Kudos: 25





	1. Unit 1: Maritime Law and Logistics

**Author's Note:**

> Why am I like this? I'm nowhere near finished with this, but I needed to get the first chapter out to hopefully force me to keep working on it, slash I am in DESPERATE need of a beta, so if you want a sneak peek at chapters in exchange for nit-picky editing, lemme know! I've learned way too much about sailing and international law in the past couple months but I make zero guarantees any of this is accurate, also I've been to maybe 10 countries at the most so please correct me. Season 5 is uncharacteristically vague about when it starts, so I've made it so that Troy leaves fall of 2014, because a) it makes more sense to me timeline-wise b) 2014's hurricane season was milder than 2013's, that's a thing I know now.
> 
> This is a companion piece with "Independent Study", which I will try to update simultaneously.

**Captain’s Log, Voyage Day 1: 4 Miles South of Starkville, Colorado, USA**

“And that’s the explanation we were given about space toilets,” LeVar sums up with exasperation. “Please tell me that was the last question.”

“It was,” Troy assures him, somewhat dejectedly. Now that he’d gotten over his fear of disappointing his childhood hero, he found that he couldn’t stop gushing to him about the effect he had on him growing up and peppering him with questions, and he really hopes LeVar Burton (!) doesn’t get sick of him before they even reach the water. “Thank you, I know you probably get that kind of thing a lot.”

“Yeah,” he confirms without malice. “But it’s good you get it out now: we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”

“How did Pierce talk you into this anyway?”

“That’s a story for another day, but the short answer is that a gig’s a gig. I’m gonna hit the head.” LeVar gets up at that, leaving Troy to look out the windows onto the highway, where they’ve been driving much more quickly once out of the Denver metropolitan area. His timing is impeccable, because he otherwise would have missed the sign: _**Welcome to NEW MEXICO: Land of Enchantment**_. He has officially left the state of Colorado; this trip is really happening.

He can’t tell if the knots in his stomach are fear or excitement. Or both. Or sadness. Or maybe it’s just car sickness. Is it still sea sickness if you’re on a boat but the boat’s not on water? He’s only ever been on boats with wheels, suddenly remembering again that boating class all the way back in first year. Him, Pierce, Britta, and Star-Burns, with Shirley as their fearless captain. That role fell to him now; who would have thought a class at Greendale would actually be of any practical use? They let Pierce ‘drown’ in that class, and then they didn’t, and isn’t _that_ a huge symbol of their complicated relationship with the man funding this trip. It’s ironic in a way… somehow. He’s never been 100% sure about the exact definition of irony, but from what he can tell he’s not alone in that. At any rate, leave it to Pierce to be perceptive and caring in the most inconveniently narcissistic way possible.

He pulls out his phone to text Abed. _**Made it to New Mexico. Wish you were here**_ He deletes it and puts his phone back in his pocket.

He pulls out his phone to text Abed. _**Made it to New Mexico!**_ He deletes it; Abed probably already knows that, what with the geo-tracking device he planted on him (which is still creepy, but it comforts him to know that if worse comes to worst and he’s lost at sea someone will know where to find the body). It hasn’t been this hard to decide what to say to him since probably their first year as friends. They never were the kind of people that text things like that.

 _‘But that Troy and Abed are dead,’_ a voice reminds him, sounding like a gross mix of Chang and Pierce. What’s worse is that the voice has a point; their relationship is different now, and if he wants to keep things from dissolving completely, they’ll have to adapt. Sure, biology wasn’t their strongest subject, but at least it’s not anthropology. They can do this. He pulls out his phone decisively. _**Made it to New Mexico! Wish you were here**_

**Captain’s Log, supplemental: Amarillo, Texas, USA**

The truck driver towing the boat stops to get gas about halfway through the trip. Troy’s never been on a road trip, but every road trip scene he remembers involves the characters staying overnight in a hotel. (He forces himself not to think of Abed. Even normal people use movies as a reference point every once in a while, right? ~~Since when is he normal?~~ ) The trucker laughs good-naturedly when Troy suggests this. He assures him that a 16-hour drive through the night is not unusual in his profession, and they’ll make it to Galveston a little before dawn.

He pulls out the map he, Annie, and Abed drafted a couple nights before he left, the corner of his lips raising at the memory.

 _“I thought the whole point of this was for it to be a sort-of_ Eat, Pray, Love _, wherever-the-wind-takes-me sorta thing,” he had pointed out._

_“Well yeah,” Annie conceded, pulling out a compass (the math kind not the adventure kind). “But it’s easier to improvise within the framework of a larger plan than to just sail into the middle of the ocean with only three days of supplies and no visas.”_

_“Yeah, most sailing movies skip over the practicalities of docking in favor of cool ocean shots. But you are entering a foreign country and well, you’re not a rich white guy.”_

_Troy groaned out Pierce’s name, hoping the asshole’s spirit could hear his exasperation from his tube. “Of course this is ten times more complicated than he let on.”_

_Abed pulled up like 15 different tabs on his laptop. “You’d think with all the oddly specific courses Greendale is able to offer despite being a community college with no budget that there’d be a class on maritime law.”_

_“There is,” Troy explained sullenly. “It’s the next course in the Boating program after the sailing class we took. I didn’t think I’d need it.”_

_“Well I’m sure Pierce probably had a lawyer on retainer that could take care of all that for you,” Annie assured him without looking up from the map. “He’d just need to know where you want to go. Speaking of, where do you want to go?” He looked down at the map where tens of circles dotted the various subdivisions of the Atlantic Ocean. “Based on the size of your boat, its lack of engine, and the fact that there’s only two of you, each of these circles represents a day’s worth of travel in diameter, erring on the conservative side.”_

_“So what’s the fastest I can be done?”_

_Abed opened the Wikipedia article. “In this kind of boat, with only two of you… the current record is 78 days nonstop.”_

_“Two and a half months, that’s not so bad.”_

_“But again,” Annie interjected, “that’s the minimum. No offense but you’re not exactly the most experienced sailor, and it kind of defeats the purpose if you don’t stop anywhere.”_

_Troy stared at the map and he found it hard to breathe. Why was the apartment so hot? Maybe he should check the AC unit really quick. But Annie and Abed both knew he gave it a tune-up last week, and Troy knew he had to do this. Hell, he_ wanted _to do this. Though that might be part of the problem. “I don’t know where to start.”_

_“Well that’s pretty easy,” Annie answered, gracefully interpreting that as a confusion about which port to choose instead of him being generally overwhelmed. “The Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico are pretty much the same distance away from us, so either one of those would work, though that will likely determine what direction you go in.”_

_“Wait why?”_

_“Well because it’s a sailboat, you need to follow the winds.”_

_Right, he remembered the Captain talking about this. “Oh yeah, did you know westerlies actually blow east? That was a super confusing day.”_

_“Do you have to start and end at the same port?”_

_“Yeah, and I have to cross the equator, all the meridians, and one set of antipodes,” he recited dutifully._

_She made some notes. “Got it. So… east or west?”_

_Troy just stared at the map again until he noticed a movement out of the corner of his eye. Never let it be said that Abed doesn’t pick up on things, he just picks up on different cues than everyone else. Abed ran into the fort, grabbed his dice, and sat opposite Troy. “Your quest to unite the seven realms has reached its first fork in the road. To your east lie tropical islands and a suspiciously large cloud; to your west, miles of deep ocean as far as the eye can see.”_

_Troy smiled at Abed gratefully. “I go east.”_

_Annie smiled too and silently drew an X somewhere on the coast of Texas. Abed continued. “You have lucked into some good weather considering the season. To the north are your countrymen—”_

_“and countrywomen—“_

_“your compatriots,” Abed compromises, “whose language you speak and whose culture you know well. To the south are a different people, our neighbors, whose language you have studied but never quite mastered because our… Elvish… instructor was a nightmare.” Troy laughed at the memory of how they all met, trying to survive Chang, back when he was somehow much tamer._

_“I check the hurricane forecast for the next few weeks.”_

_Abed rolled the dice and checked something on his computer. “A wise decision: wizards portend that should you go north at this time of year, you will likely sail right into a hurricane.”_

_“South it is, I guess.”_

_They played like this for hours, Abed making up a story off the cuff and Annie and Troy contributing when appropriate. By the end, they had plotted a course through the Caribbean, down the coast of South America (with a brief stop in Antarctica), across the Southern Ocean to Africa, up the coast to the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal into the Indian Ocean, down to Australia and back up the coast of Eastern Asia, down the Pacific coast, through the Panama Canal, and back to Texas. It was the most fun he’d ever had making major life decisions._

Troy shakes himself out of his reverie and realizes this is a rare chance to get off the boat he’ll be seeing a lot of for the next… really long time. He stocks up on gas station snacks and spies a universal plug adapter; that will definitely come in handy, seeing as he didn’t even realize there’s more than one way to shape an electrical socket (you’d think they’d’ve covered that in AC Repair school, but he suspects his education was heavily biased towards the US). He snags a lighter too, just in case. And some headphones. And okay he may be panic buying but he’s got money now, right? Well, not yet. Until he completes the journey, the only money he has is what he started with and a modest budget allocated for the trip. But he will have money eventually, and these are just essentials. Probably. Maybe.

He ignores the raised eyebrow of the attendant and shuffles back to Pierce’s boat. _His_ boat. He owns a boat. Pierce died and left the majority of his fortune to him. Troy stops in his tracks next to the aft of the ship. Pierce is straight-up dead. Yeah it’s been over a week, and yeah he didn’t even like the guy half the time, but he was still…

He must have completely zoned out because LeVar suddenly grabs his elbow. “Everything okay, Troy?” He remembers that oxygen is important and breathes in deeply. He pinches the bridge of his nose to catch any tears before they fall and nods. “We should get back on the road.”  


**Captain’s Log, Voyage Day 2: Galveston, Texas, USA**

True to the driver’s word, the haze of light peaking over the horizon in the East greets them just as they cross the bridge into Galveston. The first thing he notices is that the Gulf of Mexico is _big_. Like, _really big_. Like so impossibly big considering how small it is on his map that the magnitude if this undertaking is dawning on him just as insistently as the first rays of direct sunlight emerging before him. He stops and remembers to breathe. Abed and Annie’s smiles appear in his mind’s eye from the night they charted the map. _Just one day at a time, Troy. You’re not sailing the world today. You’re sailing from Galveston to Corpus Christi. The rest will come._

They manage to get the boat registered and in the water, then triple-check they have all the provisions and paperwork and any other stuff they need. By 9am, it’s time to set sail. The first adjustment Troy has to make is that sailing on water is significantly more wobbly than sailing on asphalt. The first day at sea will likely be spent learning how not to fall over. “You ready, captain?” Troy looks over at LeVar’s question with nervous excitement, and his childhood hero responds with an encouraging smile. Ready as he’ll ever be.

Troy beams. “Lieutenant La Forge, set a course for Corpus Christi.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” LeVar indulges. “But we’re only doing that bit once.”

“Worth it!”

Is it still a pun to say that the majority of the maiden voyage is smooth sailing if that’s where the phrase came from in the first place? Maybe Abed kn—

But Abed’s not here.

He’s never gonna get anywhere on this trip if he’s constantly thinking about everyone he’s left behind. He forcefully reminds himself that he’s not Original!Troy, he’s Clone!Troy, and he doesn’t need to get sad every time he thinks of his friends because most of his emotions were excised in the cloning process so while it’s okay to miss them, dwelling on it isn’t healthy, especially if he’s going to feel this guilty every time he does. He loves Abed, and Annie, and Britta, and Jeff, and Shirley, even the Dean and Chang in their own weird ways, and no one can take away the times they had together. Even if those days are over. For now. It’s probably just his homing pigeon DNA going a little haywire being this close to the starting/finishing line. ~~It might be a little more than that, but that’s some open ocean introspection for later, it’s still day one. Well, two, but he literally just got on the water. There’s time.~~

One of the more brain-wrinkly concepts of boating for Troy was that despite there being no roads or signs or anything, there are still traffic rules on the water. Luckily for him, not too many boats seem to be out today, which is either a great sign because he can dip his toes into sailing (seriously, how many water-related idioms does English have??) or an awful sign because maybe the other boats know something he doesn’t? Is he going the wrong way already?

“Everything alright, Troy?” He and LeVar are in the… cozy seating area in the back of the boat, having got the sails where they need them to be. He must have been quiet for a while.

“Sorry, I guess I’m just nervous. I didn’t realize how deep the ocean is.”

“Yeah, I know, and we’re still pretty close to shore.”

“Can you imagine how much this would suck if I couldn’t swim?”

“I’d rather not,” LeVar chuckles. “So, tell me about yourself, how did you end up being bequeathed the Hawthorne Wipes fortune?” Troy tells him how he met Pierce, which leads to a conversation about the study group, which leads to increasingly outlandish stories about their adventures that sound completely bonkers when you tell them all at once. Maybe Abed was right about this being a TV show. “Wow, you’ve had a lot of adventures together over the years.”

“Oh that was just freshman year, I haven’t even gotten to the good stories yet.” He spends the rest of the day catching LeVar up on an abbreviated version of the past five years, and by the time the sun sets his voice is slightly raspy and LeVar is clearly humoring him. “And that’s when he finally gave us the stuff Pierce left for us.”

LeVar lets out a shocked laugh. “If that’s the short version, we’ll have plenty to talk about over the course of this trip.” He stretches, looking out over the water. “So, what’s the plan for tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well someone has to steer at all times, so if we’re going ashore we should figure out where, and if we’re sailing through the night we should decide how we’re divvying up shifts.”

That was not a logistical issue Troy had considered. With only two of them, unless they dock every night they’ll be pulling 12-hour shifts a day. It’s not fair for one to only be days and the other only nights, but there’s no elegant way to alternate without pulling 24-hour shifts. Unless they break it up into 6-hour blocks, but that also implies they’ll only be getting 6 hours of sleep a night. “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

“I’m game either way, it’s your call.”

“…hhhhh, well, I mean I didn’t actually factor that in, so I guess… keep going? I don’t know the area well enough to find an alternate place to dock, and we should probably establish a rhythm, right? Like, we’re gonna have to figure out how to do night shifts eventually, so maybe we should try it out now to get used to it?”

“A solid plan,” LeVar assures him. “I’ll take the first shift, that way you can handle the landing in the morning.”

“Awesome, thanks!” They stay talking for another hour or so before Troy turns in for the night. Walking around in the cramped cabin is a strange sensation, but even stranger is continuing to move even when he’s lying in bed. He tried out Pierce’s waterbed once just to see what it was like, but even that was less contrary movement than the rocking of the boat. Between that, the constant rushing of the water, and the excitement of his first day at sea, he’s having a hard time falling asleep. This is his life now. He’s gonna see so many cool places, and learn things, and try things, and hopefully grow as a person, figure out what he wants out of life. He wants to enjoy every minute of it. Of course, he won’t enjoy it very much if he’s sleep deprived, but luckily his thoughts start to quiet and he eventually falls asleep.  


**Captain’s Log, Voyage Day 3: Corpus Christi, Texas, USA**

LeVar wakes him at 3am. In the morning. Which is what they agreed to, but still. It’s _early_. The lights dotting the coastline and the clear skies framing the moon make up for it, though. Eventually, to his left—or, portside, he guesses—he watches the sun rise for the second day in a row, and it’s just as breathtaking as it was yesterday. It’s a weirdly private moment, just him and the sun and the ocean greeting the day together. He resolves to pick up a phone charger when they dock—which he should have probably thought to bring in the first place but he knows for a fact is still plugged into the outlet by the apartment door—so he can take pictures. But for now, this is his own secret moment.

He rouses LeVar just as they’re about to approach land. There’s a line of long islands hugging the coast of Texas, and to reach town he has to find a way through them, which looks like a two-person job. He spots an opening and guides them through (what he later learns to be) the Aransas Pass and before he knows it they’ve arrived in Corpus Christi. They dock and head into town in search of breakfast. They decide to spend the rest of the day on land, preferring a schedule of alternating every other day between sailing days and shore leave days. He picks up a postcard and writes to Annie:  
_**Dear Caroline,**  
**Made it to your hometown, yeehaw! Miss y’all already.**  
**Love,**  
**Troy**_

The next morning, both fully rested after a night in a hotel, they board the ship, and with a long look back Troy begins his departure from the United States, the country of his birth, not to return for at least a year.

~~Or so he thinks.~~


	2. Unit 2: Piracy and Boat Safety

**Day 6: Somewhere Outside of Tampico, Mexico**

It really was just one big misunderstanding. Like, a ginormous, sitcom-worthy, international-incident-causing misunderstanding. All because Chang never taught him that “¡ADVERTENCIA!” means “WARNING!” not “ADVERTISE HERE!”

~~Okay, so maybe Chang can’t take all the blame. It was very dark, and in retrospect, a warning sign makes much more sense that far down the beach compared to a billboard. But he’s gonna stick with _It’s Chang’s fault_ for the near future.~~

Actually, no, Troy blames corrupt government bureaucracy and… other… social ills—whatever, Britta would have the words for how bullshit this situation is. APPARENTLY you can’t just land at any port, it has to be a ””Port of Entry”” which he kinda remembered Annie explaining now but honestly with all the new information bombarding him it was easy to lose a few details. If they’d let him dock in El Mezquital like he wanted, he probably wouldn’t have been deliriously tired, but he was sent on to Tampico, another day’s ride away. Sometime around 4:30am, he noted the sign and kept sailing. Right into a rock formation.

The jolt shook the boat with a disconcerting crunch. LeVar leaped out of the cabin, bewildered. “What was that?!”

Troy looked down at the starboard side of the boat, which was already starting to take on water. “FUCK!” He searched frantically for something, anything to fix this, but his brain was already crying and there was only so much boat and damn it they were gonna go down and it hadn’t even been a week! “Prepare the life raft, we’re abandoning ship!”

LeVar went for the raft while Troy ran to the radio. He took a deep breath and tried to remember the protocol for a mayday call. Hand shaking, he managed to get through the distress call without his voice breaking. As he waited for a reply, he tore through the cabin grabbing the essentials—passports and registration, meds, food, water, map, sat phone, the t-shirt and pen he stole from Abed and Annie respectively—the rest they’d just have to replace later. He tossed everything into the raft when it inflated then took a last look around the Childish Tycoon, which was already half submerged. He repeated his distress call on the radio and let whoever was out there know they were getting into the raft. Now all that was left to do was wait.

The actual sinking wasn’t as dramatic as he’d imagined, if only because he was subconsciously comparing it to Titanic, but it was still upsetting to watch as their ride sunk to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. Or, well, he imagined it was the bottom, it was hard to see just by the moonlight where it ended up and if it was able to crash it was likely closer to land than it appeared but the _point_ was that they were floating away on a life raft trying not to panic but having very little luck.

~~~

Troy had assumed that the adrenaline rush would keep him alert enough to not fall asleep on the lifeboat, but he woke up several hours later to the sun already well into the sky beside dark clouds and LeVar snoring. God, he really was bad at this. It seemed the new theme of his life was Disappointing LeVar Burton, as if it was the universe’s goal for him to perpetually make a fool of himself in front of his childhood idol, _who he almost got killed_. He should never have agreed to this trip, which was now over before it had even really begun. He barely even made it out of the US.

He took advantage of the fact LeVar was asleep and allowed himself to cry. He needed to get it out of his system now so he could go back to crisis mode and figure out a way to get them out of this. This was usually the part when Jeff or Abed or Annie would come up with a brilliant plan to fix whatever the rest of the group broke, and while Troy also had his share of those kick-ass save-the-day moments, he was now solely responsible for finding solutions to his own problems. It was just him, LeVar, and the unforgiving ocean—the ocean was currently winning.

The waves were choppier than they had been earlier, which was concerning. He was pretty sure those clouds were moving closer. They needed to get to shore, and soon, but they had no oar or motor, no way to steer them any faster than the waves could carry them. With a sardonic laugh he remembered the time he tried to puncture a raft to make it go faster only to sink the entire group in the lake. His severely limited knowledge as a sailor was mostly comprised of ways they were absolutely fucked. The waves became even more agitated, so Troy woke LeVar up so they could keep their wits about them, and all their other stuff. A crash of lightning struck the water in the far distance. He didn’t even say “at least things can’t get any worse”!

It’s a good thing he didn’t, because they could in fact still get worse, but now they were getting better, or so it appeared. Troy registered the sound of a motorized boat approaching rather quickly. As it got closer, Troy and LeVar waved them down yelling for help. The boat approached and offered them a lift. They managed to get themselves and their stuff onto the yacht, and the man who seemed to be the captain directed the men to do something with the sails. Just as they were doing that, he heard the unmistakable feedback of a megaphone. “This is the Coast Guard of the United States of America. Identify yourself!”

He turned to the captain, who looked panicked. He then saw the tattoo on the man’s arm: a Jolly Roger. He didn’t see until too late the sail on a collision course with his head.

**Day 7: Gulf of Mexico**

And now here they are.

When Troy comes to, he is in the middle of a room on a boat that feels like it’s moving very fast. He blinks a couple times to reorient himself, then winces at the bruise he can feel forming on his temple. His groan elicits a noise from behind him, and a look to his left shows LeVar. With a start he remembers how they got in this position: pirates. Honest-to-God, real-life pirates. A small part of him secretly hoped they’d encounter pirates on this trip, but not a week in and certainly not so directly. They haven’t even left the continent yet.

The room they’re in is much more spacious than the tiny cabin of the Childish Tycoon, which means they’re on a literal pirate ship right now, and who knows what happened to the boat. What if they can’t find it again? ~~And then what, Troy, raise it from the sea and pour it out like a bottle? Actually that’d be pretty cool.~~ Assuming they even make it out of this alive… He mentally curses Pierce again.

His stirring seems to have drawn the attention of a man seated at a table to Troy’s right. He certainly doesn’t look like a pirate, though the gun on his hip is sufficient to communicate the general idea. He presses a button on a walkie talkie that squawks loudly. “Está despierto.”

The response crackles through almost instantly but Troy doesn’t catch it. A minute or two later, a roguishly good-looking man ducks into the cabin, the sun obliging him with a halo for a brief second before he’s lit more naturally by the dim afternoon rays entering the portholes. He removes his sunglasses and dazzles them with a bright smile. “Buenos días, señores.”

Troy’s really regretting not keeping up with his Spanish now, or hanging on to that universal translator. “Uhhh… Buenos días, me llamo Troy, cómo se llama usted?”

The two pirates share a look before the newcomer returns his attention to him not unkindly. “You can call me Sal,” he says with a subtle but distinct Texas accent, to Troy’s relief. “Nice to meet you, Troy. I’m sorry it couldn’t be under better circumstances. Mr. Burton.”

“You can call me LeVar, Sal.”

“I certainly cannot,” Sal replies smoothly with a tilt of his head. “We were starting to get worried about you Troy, you’ve been out almost a full day. How are you feeling?”

He feels like there should be cartoon birds spinning around him and a horn-shaped lump on his forehead. “What happened?”

“That’d be my fault,” Sal says sheepishly. “When I gave orders to change course you were hit by the boom. Sorry about that.”

Troy reaches for the cup of water on the table next to him and takes a sip before asking the many questions he has. “Are you pirates?”

He hears LeVar groan as Sal and his mate laugh loudly. “Direct, I like it. Yes, according to some legal definitions we would be considered pirates, but we don’t tend to think of it that way.”

“But you’re pirates enough not to want any trouble with the Coast Guard.”

“Correct.” Sal says something to the other pirate in rapid Spanish, who nods and leaves the room. “Fortunately, we were able to escape, unfortunately that technically makes y'all hostages, and we’re fairly certain they were able to identify Mr. Burton here.”

He doesn’t quite see the connection until he realizes how this must look. “They think pirates kidnapped a celebrity for some evil piratey reason.”

Sal chuckles. “Something like that. As you can imagine, rescuing you two has become a much bigger fuss than we reckoned we were taking on. We’re trying to brainstorm how we wanna handle this, but until then we ask y’all to kindly stay here. I’ll get you some painkillers.”

At that, Sal leaves Troy alone with LeVar. LeVar Burton, whose alleged kidnapping, especially in such a dramatic fashion, is sure to be a major news item. “Our families are probably freaking out right now.”

“Likely. They took the sat phone as a precaution so we don’t really have a way to reassure them until this is over.”

Troy flops back and rests his head on the pillow, eyes shut. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

LeVar pats his hand twice. “It’s okay Troy, you did your best. I knew I was signing up for something dangerous when I agreed to do this.”

He turns to look at him. “Why did you?”

LeVar chuckles. “It’s kind of a long story. Pierce helped me out of a jam in the 80s and we became friends, in a way. Coming to Colorado to meet you the first time was no trouble at all, but when I heard he died and that he asked me to help execute his will, I was… surprised but realized he was collecting a debt and I felt an obligation to at least entertain the idea. And when I heard why he was asking me to help, I figured it sounded like a fun adventure.”

“Must’ve been some jam.”

“Well, we had just started production on _Star Trek_ and one day as I’m sitting in make-up…”

**Day…10? 10.: Cancún, Quintana Roo, Mexico**

Somehow they evade capture for three blurry days, and he and LeVar more or less befriend the pirates and swap stories. Miraculously Troy didn’t crack his skull, and it just becomes a particularly nasty bruise. When they finally pull into the harbor in Cancún, Sal puts them in a cab to the airport with two plane tickets to Miami. “Sorry for the trouble, boys, it was great sailing with y’all.”

“Thanks, Sal, for everything,” Troy replies warmly. “Good luck with pirating!”

“Thanks, I think,” he smirks. He taps the hood of the cab, which begins the drive to the airport. Troy and LeVar look at each other in silence for a second or two, then burst out in uncontrollable laughter. They survived being held hostage by pirates. They survived a shipwreck. They survived Sal’s terrible singing. Now that it’s over, they managed to stumble upon an amazing story about their trip, and they’re only 10 days in. As soon as one of them starts to die down, the other starts laughing again, and this carries them a significant part of the ride to the airport.

When they arrive, they are immediately recognized and approached by Mexican police, who question them about their time with the pirates. They don’t give a lot of details, mostly because Sal didn’t give a lot of details and they didn’t ask. Besides, the least they can do is not turn in the guys who saved their lives. Eventually, the officers seem convinced they won’t get anything else out of them, so they release them to the rest of the airport. They still have three hours until their flight, even after they get through security. Troy looks over at LeVar sleepily. “Food?”

“Food,” LeVar agrees. Halfway through their silent meal, too tired and hungry for conversation, Troy realizes he’s eating Mexican food in Mexico. He made it to a different country. And now they’re headed back to the States already. He’s always heard of Cancún, and now he’s here, but he doesn’t get to enjoy it because he has to figure out whether this spells the end of his trip. He eats slower, savoring the feeling of… something, freedom? a little while longer, just in case.

When the plane lands in Miami, they have to answer more questions at Customs, talk to FBI agents, and get accused of being pirates themselves before they can finally exit the secured area and find a payphone, which Troy thought were extinct. It occurs to him then that he’s forgotten every phone number he ever knew, and that he never bothered to learn anyone’s ever since you could store contacts. The first one he can think of is his dad’s. His dad didn’t even know he was kidnapped.

His mom, when he calls her, sobs for three minutes, yells at him for seven, then sobs again for three before she makes him promise to call her in every port. With his last quarter, he calls Abed, who picks up before the first ring can even finish. “Troy, please tell me it’s you.”

“I’m alive, Abed,” Troy exhales, breathing better than he has all day. “I just landed in Miami, I have to meet with the lawyers, I assume you know the gist.”

“It was international news,” Abed confirms. “Gotta say, didn’t expect pirates.”

Troy laughs at that understatement. “Neither did I, but it was honestly a big misunderstanding. I don’t have time to explain it right now, but I just wanted you to know I’m okay.”

“Thank you.”

He stops himself from twirling the cord around his finger. This isn’t a teen romance. “Also, you were right to make me memorize your number; you and my parents are the only ones I remember, and my phone’s at the bottom of the Gulf.”

Abed laughs. It seems like he’s doing a character but it’s still a wonderful sound. “I’ll email you all the group’s numbers.”

“Thanks, also can you let them know?”

“Of course.” There’s an awkward lull, and Troy is afraid the connection has cut out. “I thought you were gone.”

Oh. “I know,” he mumbles. “Sorry to make you worry.”

“Just be careful, please. I really don’t think the group can handle this again.”

He grins. “I’ll try.” LeVar comes up to him then and signals that their car has arrived. It’s too soon. “Shit, I gotta go.” There’s so much he wants to tell Abed, wants to explain to him, wants to hear him explain, but he settles for the main takeaways: he’s alive and cares about him. “But I gotta say this, because I don’t say it enough. I love you, man.”

“I love you too, Troy. I miss you so much.”

Troy smiles; that’s just what he needed to hear. “Miss you too,” he says softly. “I’ll call once we figure this out.”

~~~

“So there’s not a lot of wiggle room in the wording,” Pierce’s executor, Mr. Stone, says with a frown. “You can contest it, especially given the unforeseen circumstances, but it’d take a long time.”

Troy sighs, sitting back in his chair. “Fucking Pierce,” he mutters. “Childish tycoon is right…” Just then he gets a brilliant idea. “We’re buying another boat.”

“I—Troy, did you not just hear me?”

“I heard you. We’re buying another boat, preferably a bigger one that the ocean won’t immediately eat.”

One of Mr. Stone’s assistants chimes in nervously. “Sir, can we—”

“Put the order in, I wanna see where he’s going with this.”

The other accountant pulls out some forms. “Well, we’d have to get it registered as soon as possible. What name should we register it under?”

Troy grins mischievously, causing LeVar to laugh and the executor to shake his head. “You’re kidding me.”

“Yeah, _also_ Childish Tycoon.”

“You sneaky bastard.”

After filling out the other information, the accountant prints off the form and hands it to Troy. When he sees it, he bursts out in uncontrollable laughter. The accountant looks at Troy with worry. “Something wrong?”

“You—you literally typed ‘Yeah Also Childish Tycoon’!!”

“That’s what you said!”

“Really, Rodney?”

Troy jumps up excitedly. “No keep it, I love it! Does that still count?”

“You know what, under the circumstances, I’ll allow it, and unless someone contests it you should be golden.”

“Sweet!”

“Oh, no way,” LeVar chuckles, perusing the paperwork.

Troy looks at him, slightly hurt. “You don’t like it?”

LeVar takes a pencil and underlines the initials. “Y.A.Ch.T. You named your yacht Yacht.”

“I take it back I hate this,” Mr. Stone groans.

“Ha! That’s awesome! To be fair, all my pets growing up were also named Troy, this is actually an upgrade.” He grabs the paper with a flourish and marks it.

The executor looks at the form with concern. “You didn’t sign it.”

“Yeah I did.”

Mr. Stone and LeVar are looking at him weirdly. “You just put an X.”

“Yeah?”

“Troy,” LeVar inquires gently, “I thought you knew how to read.”

He sputters as chills course down his spine. “What? Of course I can read, you’re the one who taught me how!” Has he been reading wrong this entire time? Why must he always disappoint LeVar!?

“Traditionally, people only sign with an X when they’re unable to read the document themselves.”

“Wait, really? How am I just learning this now?”

“I’m more interested in how you learned to do it in the first place,” the executor quips, rifling through paperwork, presumably to verify whether he signed all the other documents like that. “Has no one ever made you sign something?”

“Obviously, but no one’s had a problem with it before. That’s how my grandfather always signed things and I thought it looked cool, like a Malcolm X sort of thing.”

“Very well,” Mr. Stone says with a long-suffering sigh. “But in the future if you could come up with an actual signature, it would save me a lot of headaches.”

**Day 14: Miami, Florida, USA**

It takes four days for the new boat to arrive and the paperwork to be processed, which is for the best because Troy’s even more nervous than he was the first time. With such a disastrous maiden voyage, how can he possibly survive a trip around the world? He understands now why Pierce just peaced out to Belize for a year and said he did it. He very nearly died.

Mr. Stone insists a doctor check him out when he hears about the details of what happened, but he’s cleared to travel and by the time he’s getting ready to depart again it doesn’t even hurt. The _Y.A.Ch.T._ is much bigger than the original _Childish Tycoon_ and fits more amenities they’ll probably need. Most of their clothes are in the Gulf, so he and LeVar go on a shopping spree in Miami, paid for by the Estate of Pierce Hawthorne. Other than that, they spend their emergency shore leave alone for the most part, just to keep some mystery.

Troy manages to talk to everyone in the study group before he leaves. Shirley fusses over him and promises to pray for him every day, which he knows she was doing anyway but it’s nice to hear. Jeff makes some sarcastic remarks but at the end of their call he tells Troy he’s really glad he’s okay and that he can call Jeff anytime if he needs to. He spends hours talking to Abed and Annie telling them the story, embellishing a little bit but emphasizing that’s he’s _totally fyne_. Britta keeps trying to not-so-subtly pry trauma out of him so he caves and talks about the parts that scared him, and it helps weirdly. Once she stops pushing and starts actually listening, she’s a great friend to talk to. It’s reassuring to hear all their voices even if he just left. So much has already changed. After only two weeks, he feels like a different person.

The sea chewed him up and spit him out, and he survived. He’s a sailor now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to the gods, in 5x1 if you look at the class action they sign, Troy literally marks it with an X, I don't know what to do with this information.


End file.
